Swing Out Sister: Renowned British group makes a rare trip to the U.S., with two shows at Nighttown

View full sizeAndy Connell and Corinne Drewery, better known as Swing Out Sister, appear at Nighttown for two shows on Thursday.Photo Courtesy of Swing Out Sister

PREVIEW

Swing Out Sister When: 7 and 9 p.m. Thursday. Where: Nighttown, 12387 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights. Tickets: $40 per person per show, available at the club, online at nighttowncleveland.com and by phone at 216-795-0550

Corinne Drewery has had a pretty good career as the vocalist for the British band Swing Out Sister. Since its formation in 1985, the band has had hits, like “Breakout” and “Am I the Same Girl?” and toured the world several times over.

And to think, she owes it all to a recalcitrant horse and a near-fatal riding accident.

Drewery, who brings bandmate Andy Connell and a superb backing band that includes world-class percussionist Jody Linscott to Nighttown for two shows on Thursday, July 4, was working in London as a fashion designer and part-time model when the accident happened.

She had joined the band, which at that time also included drummer Martin Jackson, and dividing her attention between music and fashion wasn’t working. So a trip to her family farm seemed like just the salve. Unfortunately, a 3-year-old horse and a loose saddle conspired to change things.

“It was a bad riding accident,” Drewery said in a call to her London studio. “I fractured my skull and was unconscious for a week, and out of action for a few months.”

The accident gave her time to think.

“I was always in a band when I was in college,” she said. “Sade was at the same college at the same course, and she was in a band as well.

“I used to play a lot of college parties, doing covers that I loved,” Drewery said, “Then I was a fashion designer for a few years and I thought I was missing things.

“Life hadn’t quite taken the direction I wanted,” she said. “Being forced to recuperate from the riding accident, I had a lot of time to think, and I decided that life’s too short. I nearly didn’t make it and thought maybe I should do what I really want to do.”

In the ensuing 30 years, Drewery and the band have brought their music — which is nearly impossible to categorize — to millions.

And now, they’ve reworked some of those songs into a new CD and DVD called “Private View” that isn’t just a remastering; it’s a reinvention.

“We were young and naive,” said Drewery, who described the creation of the tunes as exercises in experimentation. “It was a happy accident that those songs happened in the first place. And now, to go over and rework and revisit them, it’s given us a chance to think about how they could be done with a new approach.”

In a way, it’s almost a continuation of the recording process itself, where sometimes, the most difficult thing to do is to stop adding overdubs and changing tracks.

“When we first record something, I don’t think we’re ever happy,” she said. “[A song] is never really finished. It’s like a painting. We could always add another hue or another tone. The great thing about doing tours is you can go back and repaint your picture every time.”

The more acoustic tinge in the reworked songs on “Private View” has an added benefit, she said.

“It’s a bit more relaxed, and it lets the song speak for itself,” Drewery said. “It shows that songs can be contorted and reworked and rearranged in many different ways. This more acoustic jazzy style is a far cry from when we started.”

That’s true; when Swing Out Sister first came on the scene the band was labeled pop. It’s not. Nothing against pop, but this is a much more sophisticated, mature style of music.

“I like some of these versions that we’ve done better than the originals,” she said.

So maybe there’s a benefit to the passage of years. You learn yourself and your music. More important, maybe, is that you learn what NOT to do. Like climbing aboard a pony that doesn’t particularly like riders.

“I prefer to kiss horses now,” she said, with a proper British giggle.

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